Review of How to Make a Monster

Introduction

This 1958 horror movie tells the story of Pete Drummond, the chief make-up artist at the Hollywood Film Studio - where he has worked for 25 years. The studio is sold, and Pete is told that neither him nor his creations are required as the studio is going to change direction and make musicals instead.

Bent on revenge, Pete hypnotises the actors inside his two most impressive creations, Teenage Werewolf and Teenage Frankenstein and makes them think that they actually are monsters. Under Pete`s control, the two monsters go an a murderous spree in the studio...

Video

The video is presented in 4:3 full-frame, and given the 45 year vintage of the movie, isn`t too bad. The image is relatively grain free, and there is surprisingly little dirt on the print. The picture itself is a little low resolution, but overall is more than satisfactory. The first 100 minutes or so are presented in black and white, and the last ten minutes are shown in colour.

Obviously being 45 years old, the film`s visual style and content are both dated, but despite this, the film is well made, with good make-up (aside from the werewolf`s very dodgy looking teeth) and good sets.

Audio

The soundtrack is presented in Dolby Digital Mono, which delivers the sound effects and dialogue adequately. There is a little background hiss and the sound is a little compressed, but again given the vintage of the movie, there is nothing to complain about.

Features

Extras include a 50 minute interview with producer Samuel Zarkoff and trailers for 9 other movies, all accessed through easy to navigate menus.

The interview is an audio only affair, with various still shots displayed on-screen. The audio suffers from a lot of background hiss, but the dialogue is still understandable - there is also the occasional irritating electronic buzz which is quite distracting. The interview itself is very interesting and well worth listening to.

Conclusion

How to Make a Monster has a PG certificate, and to call it horror nowadays is stretching things a little - your average cartoon has more brutal violence and is more scary!

Having said that, the film is a very watchable classic monster movie, which flows quite well and is what I`d describe as Sunday afternoon viewing.

The video and sound are more than adequate given the age of the movie, and the extra interview is interesting despite audio problems.

Overall, one to rent unless you`re a collector of vintage horror movies.